At night her headlights glowed in the ground fog, the eleven-foot-tall reeds gleaming at the edges of the roadside. She knew exactly where Raquel Rematti’s house was. The house had been there for so long that it was almost an integral part of the landscape-a small seaside structure with faded wood, a shingled roof, and a deck overlooking the beach, just above the reedy dunes.
The house was at the end of a beach road that, for several hundred yards, was a compound of hard sand. There was a light on in the kitchen next to the deck. There were no other lights. In the fog, the single light was diffuse, soft, haloed. She wasn’t certain anyone was in the house until she saw the two cars parked near a high bank of reeds: a BMW and a Mercedes.
Clutching a manila envelope close to her chest to keep it dry, Kathy climbed the long flight of worn wooden steps. There was an odor of salt water in the air. When she saw the black expanse of the Atlantic, she acknowledged to herself, as she had many times, that she wished she lived in a house exactly like this, rooted in a place that seemed almost a part of the shoreline and the ocean itself. She craved absolute, comforting solitude, each morning a renewal of life as the sun rose from the ocean and shed light on one of the easternmost areas of the country.
After Kathy knocked, Raquel was casual and unafraid even though she was in an isolated world. Raquel Rematti came to the sliding door on the deck. Although she had seen Kathy in the courtroom several times, she had no reason to know who she was: the gallery was crowded every day for the trial of Juan the Knife and this woman could have been a spectator or a reporter.
Without hesitating, Raquel slid the glass door open for this stranger. “Can I help you?”
Kathy said, “Ms. Rematti, I work for the Suffolk County DA. In the forensics lab. I need to talk to you.”
“Come in.”
30.
Margaret Harding had done what a genuinely experienced trial lawyer in a murder case would do. She waited. She listened attentively as Raquel asked questions and Joan Richardson gave answers. From time to time she made notes. For the most part she restrained herself from objecting.
As soon as Raquel said, “I have no more questions,” Judge Conley turned to Margaret Harding. “Re-direct,” she said.
No recess, no pause. Margaret rose quickly to her feet, asking, “Mrs. Richardson, was one of your husband’s special friends Juan Suarez?”
“Do you mean special friends in the way Trevor Palmer was Brad’s special friend?”
“Was Juan Suarez one of your husband’s special friends, like Trevor Palmer?”
“He was.”
“Did you ever see what they did as special friends?”
“I saw them together.”
“And what did you see them doing?”
“I saw them hold hands. I saw them in rooms alone with each other.”
“Did you see your husband and Mr. Suarez do anything else?”
“They swam naked in the pool together.”
“And?”
“They went to New York together several times. They were close. Brad liked Juan a great deal.”
“Did you ever ask Brad about his relationship with Juan?”
“Brad said Juan was a sweet man, very easy to be with. He’d often say how lucky we were to have found Juan.”
“What else did he say?”
“How handsome Juan was. He asked me whether I thought Juan looked more like Antonio Banderas or Benicio Del Toro, the actors. More like the dashing Latin type or the dark, handsome brooding type.”
“You told the jury yesterday, didn’t you, that Brad fired Juan when he learned that you and Juan were lovers?”
“I did.”
“Was Mr. Richardson doing anything with Mr. Suarez before Brad fired him?”
“We had some trees and branches that were hanging over the stone patio near the pool. It was fall. Juan was out there working. He was cutting down branches.”
“Was he alone?”
“No, Brad was with him for about half an hour. Brad, who told me that he’d like to have a simpler life someday and do real work with his hands, sometimes watched Juan do things like masonry and gardening.”
“What was Juan using to do his work on the branches?”
“A long blade that he called a machete.”
“What was your husband doing?”
“Just watching for the most part. And then at one point Juan handed the machete to him and Brad swung at the branches. He missed, like a baseball batter hitting only air. They laughed together at that.”
“How often had you seen Juan use that machete?”
“Many times. He used it when he was gardening to dig out roots, he used it on the shrubbery. We had lots of supplies and tools when Juan came to work for us. But the one thing he said was missing was a machete. And I remember that Brad and Juan went to the hardware store in Sag Harbor to buy a new machete for him just a few days after Juan started working for us.”
“And did you ever see that machete after you saw your husband and Brad on the patio with it?”
“Never, Ms. Harding.”
Raquel was shaken by what she heard Joan Richardson say. Joan had that thousand-yard stare Raquel had often seen in witnesses who had been on the stand for too long. She seemed no longer focused on what was happening in the courtroom; there was almost no forethought in the answers she gave. This made her unpredictable, dangerous.
Raquel also knew she had the complicated problem of wanting the jurors to believe much of what Joan Richardson had said-the presence of Trevor and Jimmy in Brad’s life, his use of cocaine, his nonchalance about allowing people to know that there was cash in the house-and at the same time to disbelieve other parts of her testimony, such as Juan’s use of a machete, his naked swimming with Brad, his unfettered run of the house. Raquel even thought that she should simply stop asking questions and let her leave the witness stand after Margaret Harding finished her terse re-direct examination. But Raquel’s experience was that this process was like a chess game in many ways, that each move demanded a counter-move, and that generally the player who stopped making moves was the one who had just lost. Losers had no more moves.
Raquel asked, “Mrs. Richardson, let’s focus on the night Detective Halsey called you back to East Hampton. Are you there with me?”
She said, “I think so.”
“Why don’t you try thinking harder: Isn’t it the fact that you recall the night Detective Halsey called you back to East Hampton?”
“Yes.”
“You testified that when Detective Halsey asked you who you thought did this the only name you mentioned was Juan Suarez. Do you remember that?”
For the first time Joan Richardson looked directly at Juan Suarez. He held Joan’s gaze. “I remember,” she said.
“And you also testified you saw people in the house the day before Brad died, correct?”
Joan Richardson shifted her gaze from Juan to Raquel. “There were.”
“Jimmy?”
“Yes.”
“And Jimmy was the coke dealer, correct?”
“He was, Ms. Rematti.”
“And Jimmy knew where the cash was kept, correct?”
“He must have-Brad gave him cash upstairs.”
“And you know that Brad used to take Jimmy upstairs and Jimmy came downstairs with cash, is that right?”
“I saw that. As I’ve said, we ran a pretty open house.”
“And we know that Brad called Jimmy ‘rough trade,’ right?”